Nikon F100 - Battery Holder

[arturo_rs]

Hello. I have a Nikon F100 with the grip. I would like to use it without it. Serarching the internet I found what I need. It is called MS-13. It uses CR123A batteries. The problem, it cost more than 100€ (at ebay), half of what cost me the camera. It is sold out everywhere. Any idea where I can get it?

Thank you.

 

[MFstooges]

Here are the alternatives:
1) Based on dimension of CR123 and your camera battery compartment you can design your own and 3D print it. I have no idea what's the cost but my guess is you can get it cheaper if you have access to the printer.
2) Search on eBay for a used F100 or parts camera that comes with it.

 

[Hal Beesley]

Hello. I have a Nikon F100 with the grip. I would like to use it without it. Serarching the internet I found what I need. It is called MS-13. It uses CR123A batteries. The problem, it cost more than 100€ (at ebay), half of what cost me the camera. It is sold out everywhere. Any idea where I can get it?

View attachment 373911

Thank you.

I believe there was a battery holder for AA batteries, which might be easier to find.

 

[arturo_rs]

I believe there was a battery holder for AA batteries, which might be easier to find.

Well, the MS-12. I found it but more expensive.

 

[neilt3]

Well, the MS-12. I found it but more expensive.

I got the AA holder for mine off eBay for £20 or £25 .
I already had one , but misplaced it amongst everything else .
So I gave up looking and bought another .
They were easy to find and no too expensive to be better off looking for my old one .
I certainly wouldn't pay £100 for a battery holder , I didn't pay that for the whole camera , and it came with the battery holder !
I bought the grip separately.

You could possibly buy a complete, but faulty camera for the battery holder , and then sell the camera on .
There's a complete one on eBay for £90 , but it's not clear what the fault is .
It's listed as faulty battery grip , it might be the camera body at fault rather than the battery insert .
In which case you could sell in the body for £70-£80 and the battery pack won't cost you much more than the import duties of your country .
Certainly worth looking into.

Nikon F100 35mm SLR Film Camera Body Only for sale online | eBay UK

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Nikon F100 35mm SLR Film Camera Body Only at the best online prices at eBay UK! Free delivery for many products!

www.ebay.co.uk

 

[arturo_rs]

I got the AA holder for mine off eBay for £20 or £25 .
I already had one , but misplaced it amongst everything else .
So I gave up looking and bought another .
They were easy to find and no too expensive to be better off looking for my old one .
I certainly wouldn't pay £100 for a battery holder , I didn't pay that for the whole camera , and it came with the battery holder !
I bought the grip separately.

You could possibly buy a complete, but faulty camera for the battery holder , and then sell the camera on .
There's a complete one on eBay for £90 , but it's not clear what the fault is .
It's listed as faulty battery grip , it might be the camera body at fault rather than the battery insert .
In which case you could sell in the body for £70-£80 and the battery pack won't cost you much more than the import duties of your country .
Certainly worth looking into.

Nikon F100 35mm SLR Film Camera Body Only for sale online | eBay UK

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Nikon F100 35mm SLR Film Camera Body Only at the best online prices at eBay UK! Free delivery for many products!

www.ebay.co.uk

thank you

 

[neilt3]

thank you

Just make sure the battery holder is ok .
It might be that bit that's faulty .
The other faulty cameras I saw on that quick search were all missing the battery holder .
They'll have sold them separately to get more money .

 

[rhmimac]

The MS-12 AA battery holder is way too flimsy designed by Nikon. It just breaks on the edge when you push in the battery a couple times.
The F90X used almost the same design ( not the quarter turn lock but a coin screw) though this one is far more sturdier.
I was trying to find a MS-12 as I like a light camera without a battery pack underneath. Nowhere to find anymore, sadly. The big battery grip

MB-15 High Power Pack can be found easily, costing 100-200€, a lot of money for a plastic part.​

I'm now so far as to get rid of the F100 and stay on the F90X forever because of the battery holder issues.

 

[Melvin J Bramley]

Hello. I have a Nikon F100 with the grip. I would like to use it without it. Serarching the internet I found what I need. It is called MS-13. It uses CR123A batteries. The problem, it cost more than 100€ (at ebay), half of what cost me the camera. It is sold out everywhere. Any idea where I can get it?

View attachment 373911

Thank you.

 

[Melvin J Bramley]

I have the holder for 4 X AA batteries if you can use it?
I no longer have a F100 .
I would have to ship from Canada; the wet side.

 

[Plutonius]

It would far cheaper and easier to come up with a repair kit for the existing battery holder than manufacturing a new one. Is there a common failure mode for the battery holder?

 

[reddesert]

Honestly, I don't think the AA battery holder for the F100 should break while you're putting batteries into it. It's not super beefy, but you also shouldn't be pushing that hard. I can see doing this if one were a pro photographer in the 1990s trying to change batteries in a hurry, but a user in 2024-25 is probably a hobbyist who can take a little more time.

The AA holders for the F100, N90, and N8008 are all kind of a problem spot because they are necessary, not made any more, and a relatively complex plastic shape. I have some broken holders for the N90 and N8008 that were weakened by battery corrosion and/or stressed by battery swelling. A failure point tends to be the vertical spines breaking, but you can also get breakage of little bits that hold a metal contact.

I have thought about trying to 3D-scan a battery holder to create a crude model that could be refined by somebody and printed, but the printer I have that is supposed to 3D-scan is not behaving. The yet more modern way may be to take a bunch of 2D photos and feed them into a AI reconstructor that attempts to reproduce the 3D shape - a colleague had good success with this for a flattish part, but it was a less complex shape.

 

[Plutonius]

I did notice someone is selling the 3d model for printing of a battery holder.

Nikon MS-12 AA Battery Holder for F100

A copy of the original plastic parts of the MS-12 AA battery holder for Nikon F100. Consists of two separate parts. Rubber seal, battery contacts and lock from the original broken holder

cults3d.com

The catch is you have to transfer all the metal contacts/spring/etc.. over to the new holder.

 

[rhmimac]

The MS-12 AA battery holder is way too flimsy designed by Nikon. It just breaks on the edge when you push in the battery a couple times.
The F90X used almost the same design ( not the quarter turn lock but a coin screw) though this one is far more sturdier.
I was trying to find a MS-12 as I like a light camera without a battery pack underneath. Nowhere to find anymore, sadly. The big battery grip

MB-15 High Power Pack can be found easily, costing 100-200€, a lot of money for a plastic part.​

I'm now so far as to get rid of the F100 and stay on the F90X forever because of the battery holder issues.

I could't part of my now worthless F100 (broken battery holder) so I ordered a MB15 in Japan and I will hope this plastic external holder is more resilient than the flimsy original internal one and the camera can see me out in this form. I just love F90 and F100 form factor and grip too much to part of it.

 

[runswithsizzers]

The catch is you have to transfer all the metal contacts/spring/etc.. over to the new holder.

For me, this is the big problem to be solved.

I don't shoot Nikon, but the same situation exists with some models of Konica cameras, as described by..

The AA holders for the F100, N90, and N8008 are all kind of a problem spot because they are necessary, not made any more, and a relatively complex plastic shape...

With those Konicas which use detachable AA or AAA battery holder/grips (like the Konica FT-1), this is definitely a weak link. Finding a functional battery grip is becoming increasingly difficult. From what I have seen with the Konicas, it is not so much the plastic battery holders that break, but rather the metal bits which make the electrical connection the camera body getting mangled. And the metal bits are complex in shape, and would be difficult to make by hand. So whether repairing an old part or making a new one, the problem becomes, how to make and replace the metal bits?

Anyone who can solve the problem of repairing/replacing parts like these battery grips is going to be a hero among analog photographers. But we may have to get over the idea that keeping these old cameras going can be done for little or no money. The parts will become available only if/when it is profitable for someone to make them.

There is a tendency for us to calculate if repairs are worth doing releative to what we paid for the camera.

The problem, it cost more than 100€ (at ebay), half of what cost me the camera.

I certainly wouldn't pay £100 for a battery holder , I didn't pay that for the whole camera

Using that logic, the less you paid for the camera, the less you would be willing to spend on it. In my mind, the opposite is true: the less I spent for the camera, the more I can afford to spend repairing it. Personally, I think any time I can buy and repair a used SLR film camera -- one that I enjoy using, and plan to keep -- for a total investment of $300-500(US), I feel like it is worth it, for me.

 

[reddesert]

For me, this is the big problem to be solved.

I don't shoot Nikon, but the same situation exists with some models of Konica cameras, as described by..


With those Konicas which use detachable AA or AAA battery holder/grips (like the Konica FT-1), this is definitely a weak link. Finding a functional battery grip is becoming increasingly difficult. From what I have seen with the Konicas, it is not so much the plastic battery holders that break, but rather the metal bits which make the electrical connection the camera body getting mangled. And the metal bits are complex in shape, and would be difficult to make by hand. So whether repairing an old part or making a new one, the problem becomes, how to make and replace the metal bits?

Anyone who can solve the problem of repairing/replacing parts like these battery grips is going to be a hero among analog photographers. But we may have to get over the idea that keeping these old cameras going can be done for little or no money. The parts will become available only if/when it is profitable for someone to make them.

There is a tendency for us to calculate if repairs are worth doing releative to what we paid for the camera.


Using that logic, the less you paid for the camera, the less you would be willing to spend on it. In my mind, the opposite is true: the less I spent for the camera, the more I can afford to spend repairing it. Personally, I think any time I can buy and repair a used SLR film camera -- one that I enjoy using, and plan to keep -- for a total investment of $300-500(US), I feel like it is worth it, for me.

One does not have to fabricate exact replacements for the metal parts. They just need to provide metal surfaces that make firm contact between the battery ends, and from the batteries to the body contacts. Although not for the Nikons discussed in this thread, I have repaired other battery contacts, to function if not to a professional standard, with bendable stiff copper wire and/or pieces cut from thin stainless steel. There is an example here for the replacement button battery holder for the Bronica SQ-Ai that I designed, and put on Thingiverse for free download: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5256045 (Another person designed one of these SQ-Ai holders first, but their stl file has some problems that make it not work on many printers, so I made a new one from scratch.)

If you click to the second picture of the Bronica holder, you can see the bent metal tabs. They're not nearly as finished a product as the original, but they work well. However, though many people could bend steel or copper wire to fit into a 3D printed holder, I can't guarantee that everyone can, especially if the user has already broken a previous plastic holder. I mean, the AA holders are not the strongest, but most of the broken ones I've seen were already damaged by battery corrosion. They shouldn't quickly fall apart in normal handling.

I agree with you that the question is not so much "does it cost more than the camera body?" but what is the use value of the camera? People are a little spoiled by being able to access an F100 for ~ US$150-200 (or whatever it is) and an MB-15 for the same amount. Per Ken Rockwell, the F100 was ~ $1400 new at retail in 1999 dollars.

 

[runswithsizzers]

One does not have to fabricate exact replacements for the metal parts. They just need to provide metal surfaces that make firm contact between the battery ends, and from the batteries to the body contacts. Although not for the Nikons discussed in this thread, I have repaired other battery contacts, to function if not to a professional standard, with bendable stiff copper wire and/or pieces cut from thin stainless steel.

No doubt you are correct. Once upon a time, I made jewelry from sheet silver and copper wire. But that was a half-century ago, and my eyes are not as good as they were then.

I have not yet tried to repair the contacts on this Konica FT-1 battery grip. I think I can probably bend the twisted part back into shape. However, if the thin metal breaks, I doubt if I would want to try to fabricate a replacement part from sheet stock. It is not clear to me just how much I could deviate from the original design and still make a reliable electrical contact with the sockets in the camera body.



If someone were to 3D print the plastic part, would they try to replicate the plastic "pins" that hold the metal parts in place? Or would we forget about the pins and just epoxy the metal parts in place? I use epoxy for many different repairs, and I know there are a few plastics which epoxy does easily bond to.

 

[Plutonius]

No doubt you are correct. Once upon a time, I made jewelry from sheet silver and copper wire. But that was a half-century ago, and my eyes are not as good as they were then.

I have not yet tried to repair the contacts on this Konica FT-1 battery grip. I think I can probably bend the twisted part back into shape. However, if the thin metal breaks, I doubt if I would want to try to fabricate a replacement part from sheet stock. It is not clear to me just how much I could deviate from the original design and still make a reliable electrical contact with the sockets in the camera body.

View attachment 393200

If someone were to 3D print the plastic part, would they try to replicate the plastic "pins" that hold the metal parts in place? Or would we forget about the pins and just epoxy the metal parts in place? I use epoxy for many different repairs, and I know there are a few plastics which epoxy does easily bond to.

I would imagine that the pins should be replicated. It helps position the metal contacts. I would then epoxy over the pin to hold the contact in place.